My 2017 Resolutions

I’m not one to usually make resolutions and stick to them each year. The one that tends to stand out every year for the past five has been to loose weight and I’ve gotten so far then failed so I’m not going to curse that one with making it an official resolution for 2017 – I do still have a wedding dress to get into for April you know.

No, this year is all about achievable resolutions rather than the big life-changing ones that seem achievable when you’ve got another 365 days ahead of you but actually look pretty hard to wrap your head around when you get to July and haven’t done a thing. I’ve only made five and they’re just some promises to myself that I want to make and hope to come through on:

Start Reading the Discworld Book Series

I don’t know if it’s just my age or because the really old-fashioned book covers never appealed to me in shops (as I did used to judge books by their covers and I’ve no shame) but I missed out on the entirety of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and I know there’s a hefty number of books to get into.

We’ve been watching some of the Sky One adaptions of his work over Christmas and I really enjoyed watching Going Postal recently so I’ve decided to start reading the series in 2017. I’ve done rather well at generally hitting my reading challenge targets before now and as I’ve now got a few of the copies on my Kindle I’m sure I’ll zoom through them.

I don’t know if I’m going to get through all of the books this year but I’m certainly going to give it a go because they’ve been staring at me in shops for ages wanting to be read and when you’ve missed out on a whole series that’s got a lot of fans and history then you really should give it a fair chance.

Donate To Charity More

I’ve never been one for charitable donations in lump sums as I prefer to chuck any spare change in the collection tins in shops when I have the time but I want to give more this year. Once the wedding is over we should hopefully have some surplus income I can start putting away for other important life things like moving house or starting a family but I want to give some of this back to good causes whilst I can.

I’m not talking big chunks of cash in one go because God knows I really can’t afford to chuck three figures in the direction of a televised fundraiser during that time of year but I want to give GoFundMe pages that my friends share from time to time and spread out my contributions to different charities and causes.

Generally I feel like I should be more aware of charity and extend my goodwill further to others because I’m sure they are people out there who need help and should receive it.

Keep Up Long-Distance Friendships

With organising a wedding quite a few old friends come out of the woodwork because even though we’ve not spoken in a while I still want them at my big day and to share something special with them. I find that in this day and age with so many methods of communication available to us it’s harder to actually keep up talking to friends and making an effort.

I want to keep up friendships that will be reignited with our wedding and make a true effort to respond to those text messages that I receive and have a good look over the emails in my inbox that I just haven’t had the time for because someone else took the time to message me so why I can’t I message them in return? We’re all getting older and new friendships are harder to make and keep and so I’m determined to keep the ones I have aleady going this coming year.

Find a new Career

As much as I am thoroughly settled into my job in retail and now really enjoy the people I work with I just know that this isn’t a career for me. I know that I could progress but the route up really doesn’t appeal to me for the work/life balance I want to have so I’m on the hunt for a new career.

I had a few job interviews last year in recruitment and they didn’t quite work out so I’m really going to get on it as soon as the Christmas decs are away and everyone has recovered from their midnight champagne hangovers. I want to try something different that I know can be good at and I think it’s about damn time I put my experience and degree to use and settle into a new area of work that will feel far more fulfilling.

Start Gaining an Income from my Blog

I’ve started putting ads on the sidebar of my layout because I want to make some income from blogging with the amount of time and effort I put into it. I really like spending the time with this project of mine and think often about what I want to do next and where I want to go with it.

I did YouTube when I first started blogging and then I suddenly became shy because I really hate watching myself on camera so I deleted all of my videos but I’m thinking about starting it up again. I think there’s some I can give to the blogging community and if I’m working really hard on something I’d love to gain benefit from it and there are many successful bloggers out there already so why not join them.

That’s my plan for 2017, have you made any and do you think you’ll be able to stick to them?